In a ruling that may rekindle legal challenges in California, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday found that a Massachusetts buffer zone around abortion clinics to keep protesters from approaching patients violates the First Amendment.

The high court unanimously concluded that a 35-foot zone around clinics that provide abortion services goes too far by stripping protesters of any free speech rights, even though the justices made it clear such laws serve the state’s “legitimate interests.” The ruling hinged on the fact that the law, broader than most in other states and cities, restricted speech in public areas such as sidewalks and street entrances.

“The buffer zones burden substantially more speech than necessary,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

The ruling has been closely watched in California, which has a long history of court battles over regulation of protests outside abortion clinics. San Francisco, which has a 25-foot buffer zone around clinics, backed Massachusetts in the case, joined by 17 other U.S. cities. California was among 13 states also urging the Supreme Court to uphold the law.

Lawyers in Bay Area cities with such laws were scrambling Thursday to review the ruling and its implications.

For the most part, legal experts have predicted that less restrictive laws could survive even if the Supreme Court struck down the Massachusetts law. Most buffer zones, such as San Jose’s, are modeled after a Colorado law the Supreme Court upheld in 2000; it requires protesters to stay at least 8 feet away from anyone who is within 100 feet of a clinic.

The court did not specifically overturn the Colorado precedent, but the ruling may cast doubt on buffer zones generally because of free speech concerns. As a result, the decision could revive legal challenges to laws in California, where courts have sided with regulation outside clinics.

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Linda Williams, president of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the largest Bay Area chapter, said the organization is hopeful laws in San Jose, Oakland and Sacramento would still hold up, but expressed concern about San Francisco’s.

Abortion foes had been hopeful that the Supreme Court would relax local laws that restrict their ability to speak to women entering clinics. Phoebe Wise, a Los Altos woman who attends protests each Thursday outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Mountain View, told this newspaper she was hoping the Supreme Court would get rid of the buffer zones.

“We would like to be able to speak to people,” she said.

In fact, the Supreme Court said Massachusetts and other cities have ample ways to regulate protests that cross the line into harassment without violating free speech rights. It noted that the broad buffer zone prevents even peaceful abortion foes from handing literature to patients heading into clinics. The ruling suggested cities and states should focus on such anti-harassment laws, rather than blanket buffer zones.

“Here (Massachusetts) has pursued those interests by the extreme step of closing a substantial portion of a tradi­tional public forum to all speakers,” the Supreme Court wrote. “It has done so without seriously addressing the problem through alternatives that leave the forum open for its time-honored purposes.

Three of the justices, while agreeing with the outcome, would have gone further, abolishing buffer zones altogether. “Today’s opinion carries forward this Court’s practice of giving abortion-rights advocates a pass when it comes to suppressing the free-speech rights of their opponents,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.

Abortion rights groups expressed concern that laws around the country could be vulnerable, threatening the safety of women seeking abortion services at health care facilities.

“Buffer zones have been a vital shield protecting women seeking reproductive health care and medical providers at clinics,” said Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center. “Without this protective zone, patients, providers and clinic staff will again be vulnerable to severe harassment and violence. While the decision did not strike down buffer zones as unconstitutional, the ruling will make it more difficult for states to maintain them.”

Advocates for the Massachusetts woman, Eleanor McCullen, who sued to overturn the Massachusetts law praised the court’s decision.

“The government cannot reserve its public sidewalks for Planned Parenthood, as if their message is the only one women should be allowed to hear,” said Mark Rienzi, lead counsel for McCullen and a professor of constitutional law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.